Letters (35 page)
Authors: Saul Bellow
To Pascal Covici
[n.d.] [Minneapolis]
Dear Pat:
The liquor was hidden, the light left burning. Was everything in good order when you returned? I’d be desolated if it wasn’t. I hope you and Dorothy had a tall old time in the South. After you left the weather [in New York] became deadly cold.
What’s there to report? Lillian H[ellman] and I had a good talk as a result of which I’ve made fine progress with the Tragedy of Bummidge the self-analyst. Next week I plunge into Act II. I go and go—write and write. Oh: Meridian Press is wildly eager to publish a magazine, on very good terms to editors and contributors.
Also the Ford Foundation has been heard from. Today I received forms to fill with details of my financial history. It seems I don’t earn enough annually to ship a goat to Guatemala from next door in Honduras.
Any news about
Henderson
? If it isn’t very very good, please spare me.
Henderson
? If it isn’t very very good, please spare me.
Were the pictures frightful? I’m sure they must have been.
The Hebrew dictionary and the records arrived. Many thanks.
Remember me with love to Dorothy.
Yr. devoted friend,
No check for Jan.?
To Elizabeth Ames
February 5, 1959 Minneapolis
Dear Elizabeth:
I hope you’ve had a good year.
Mine has been very mixed. Luckily, as I slowly discover, my character is a tough one. Here I’d gone around thinking that I was the flower of fragility. What a misconception! Well, we’d better be sturdy. They’re getting the machines ready to carry us body and bones to the moon. Just imagine Yaddo on Mars and Venus. It’s a very sobering idea.
I am asking Viking Press to send you a copy of
Henderson the Rain King
. It might have originated in the Mars Yaddo and not at Saratoga Springs where it actually had its birth. You may find it a poor return for your hospitality. And then again you may like it. I hope so.
Henderson the Rain King
. It might have originated in the Mars Yaddo and not at Saratoga Springs where it actually had its birth. You may find it a poor return for your hospitality. And then again you may like it. I hope so.
Love,
To Josephine Herbst
February 18, 1959 Minneapolis
Dearest Josie:
In haste: You bet there’s a magazine. It’s coming out in September. Meridian Press is publishing it and I’m one of the editors,
primus inter pares
. I’m anxious to read some of your things, particularly the memoirs. I have a feeling they must be extraordinarily hot. Do you have a copy to spare me? I’d be very grateful. The editors of this thing are very eager to stay away from the typical literary magazine. To some extent it will of course be literary, but we want to avoid overemphasis on literature. There’ll be no criticism in it, or very little. It should be topical, too, and writers ought to be encouraged to do reportage, familiar essays, social comment and all of that. To get away from the notion that literature is about itself. Such bunk.
primus inter pares
. I’m anxious to read some of your things, particularly the memoirs. I have a feeling they must be extraordinarily hot. Do you have a copy to spare me? I’d be very grateful. The editors of this thing are very eager to stay away from the typical literary magazine. To some extent it will of course be literary, but we want to avoid overemphasis on literature. There’ll be no criticism in it, or very little. It should be topical, too, and writers ought to be encouraged to do reportage, familiar essays, social comment and all of that. To get away from the notion that literature is about itself. Such bunk.
I’ll write in more detail soon. I don’t generally. But I feel drawn to you. Why? Perhaps you understand this better than I. I’ve come to love you. There’s something about you that brings out that feeling in me, very strongly. [ . . . ]
To Pascal Covici
February 19, 1959 Minneapolis
Dear Pat:
We seem to be making a splash [with
Henderson
], and I know that doesn’t displease you. I haven’t read any reviews except the ones you send, and those after Sondra has looked them over. She feels that I shouldn’t have to lick any more wounds than I received last summer, and I suppose she’s right. Anyway, I think there’s every reason to be satisfied with what I have seen. The rest can’t count for much; besides, I can’t allow myself to brood over any of it, good or bad. I’ve seen more than one writer stop his work to concern himself for a year or two or three with the fate of a particular book, then to discover that he had lost the thread. I’m writing the second act of a farce, and that’s what I shall try to think about.
Henderson
], and I know that doesn’t displease you. I haven’t read any reviews except the ones you send, and those after Sondra has looked them over. She feels that I shouldn’t have to lick any more wounds than I received last summer, and I suppose she’s right. Anyway, I think there’s every reason to be satisfied with what I have seen. The rest can’t count for much; besides, I can’t allow myself to brood over any of it, good or bad. I’ve seen more than one writer stop his work to concern himself for a year or two or three with the fate of a particular book, then to discover that he had lost the thread. I’m writing the second act of a farce, and that’s what I shall try to think about.
Before the Ford [Foundation] fortune came through, I had accepted invitations to give a couple of talks, one at Illinois and another at Chicago in April. After April 24th I aim to take a short holiday. At the beginning of June, we’re coming East
en famille.
I realize that you’re wondering what the grant amounts to. Well, it’s eight thousand a year for two years, and that’s nothing to complain about. The Foundation assumes that with this base, I can earn what more I need and suffer no undue anxiety. That’s true. But I’ll need to do the play, now, and I can’t see what objection there is to the magazine. It
excites
me. Isn’t that as good as money? And since I won’t be teaching it’ll be highly beneficial because I need some other kind of interest even when I’m writing.
en famille.
I realize that you’re wondering what the grant amounts to. Well, it’s eight thousand a year for two years, and that’s nothing to complain about. The Foundation assumes that with this base, I can earn what more I need and suffer no undue anxiety. That’s true. But I’ll need to do the play, now, and I can’t see what objection there is to the magazine. It
excites
me. Isn’t that as good as money? And since I won’t be teaching it’ll be highly beneficial because I need some other kind of interest even when I’m writing.
Naturally, we’ll be in Minneapolis for part of next year so that the psychiatry and the neurology can go on. They tell me I’m making great speed, and Sondra too is much better. All’s well in the sack, unusually well, and we’ve begun to feel much affection for each other. So it’d be ridiculous to depart for long from this base. I’ll be in and out, next year.
I think the
Times
piece stirred up quite a lot of hornets. That’s fine. They’ve been quietly chewing paper for a long time, undisturbed.
Times
piece stirred up quite a lot of hornets. That’s fine. They’ve been quietly chewing paper for a long time, undisturbed.
Love to Dorothy.
Yours as always,
Bellow had just published “Deep Readers of the World, Beware!” in
The New York Times Book Review.
The New York Times Book Review.
To Ralph Ellison
[n.d.] [Minneapolis]
Dear Ralph:
I’ve been tightly wound up for a few months. It would have done me some good to take the advice I gave you so freely a few years ago and remain above the battle. The fighting about poor
Henderson
has been fierce and wild, and to make matters worse I’m not quite sure where I myself stand. For I’m not in possession of my head and don’t know what parts of the book originate in gaiety and which in desperation. It’s easy enough to see through the prejudices of critics and to assess their vindictiveness against the new and the unexpected but it’s not as though the book occurred as a pure act of the imagination. The worry and the struggle and confusion of mind and feeling of the last two years have muddied it. I know what answer I’d like to give but what bothers me is the strong will to give it and I’m not sure but that the attitude is stronger than all the other elements in
Henderson
together. From this you’ll conclude that your friend is badly mixed-up; we must be besotted ere we can become wise, Montaigne says. Yes, but how long, O Lord! And then too the mixture of success and failure is bewildering; it keeps you from being properly besotted, although the moving down that took place last summer should satisfy the most exacting moralist. I’m inclined to set the whole of
Henderson
down to dizziness and begin to think of a new start. [ . . . ]
Henderson
has been fierce and wild, and to make matters worse I’m not quite sure where I myself stand. For I’m not in possession of my head and don’t know what parts of the book originate in gaiety and which in desperation. It’s easy enough to see through the prejudices of critics and to assess their vindictiveness against the new and the unexpected but it’s not as though the book occurred as a pure act of the imagination. The worry and the struggle and confusion of mind and feeling of the last two years have muddied it. I know what answer I’d like to give but what bothers me is the strong will to give it and I’m not sure but that the attitude is stronger than all the other elements in
Henderson
together. From this you’ll conclude that your friend is badly mixed-up; we must be besotted ere we can become wise, Montaigne says. Yes, but how long, O Lord! And then too the mixture of success and failure is bewildering; it keeps you from being properly besotted, although the moving down that took place last summer should satisfy the most exacting moralist. I’m inclined to set the whole of
Henderson
down to dizziness and begin to think of a new start. [ . . . ]
I’d like to have something from you in the first issue, part of the novel, if the seacook isn’t ready. Maybe you could spare a few pages of the boy preacher. That would be fine. It would give you the advantage also of seeing a little of it in hard print. For me, anyway, that’s always valuable; you may feel otherwise.
I hope the house hasn’t been troubling you. [ . . . ] I gathered that the oil bills bothered you. I don’t really mind paying them. The expense of the house is altogether pretty small. I get a few hundred dollars a year from my father’s estate which just about covers the fuel costs and makes me feel that my old man still gives me shelter. I guess everyone figures these arrangements out according to his own fetishistic devices. A few details: If [Jack] Sarda [the handyman] hasn’t cleaned the leaves out of the gutters, he ought to. Also, he and I arranged to have the front stairs and the shutters painted (it should have been done before winter), so would you remind him of that, and also of the aluminum door we discussed for the kitchen? Why do I always connect “artistic temperament” like his with poor performance? I’m beginning to think also of the garden. The strawberry plants must need a little cultivating, and the garden ought to be disked up as soon as the ground dries. The guy at Ed Smith’s Service Station (Elmer) always does that for me. The peat and the fertilizer ought to be spread around first, though if you’re busy it’s no great deal, I enjoy doing that sort of thing, and can look after it in June when we come up.
For the magazine, which we call
The Noble Savage
, we have a few excellent pieces. One by John Berryman on India, one by a young fellow named [Edward] Hoagland (he wrote a book called
Cat Man
) which is very fine, a short thing by Wright Morris, etc. You’re listed as a contributing editor. If you have no objection to that would you mind sending to me, or to Aaron Asher at Meridian Books, a little statement giving your consent?
The Noble Savage
, we have a few excellent pieces. One by John Berryman on India, one by a young fellow named [Edward] Hoagland (he wrote a book called
Cat Man
) which is very fine, a short thing by Wright Morris, etc. You’re listed as a contributing editor. If you have no objection to that would you mind sending to me, or to Aaron Asher at Meridian Books, a little statement giving your consent?
Saw Malamud in Chicago. Unquestionably the right choice for the award.
All the best from the queen of the Middle Ages. From me too.
Bernard Malamud’s novel
The Assistant
had just received the National Book Award for Fiction.
The Assistant
had just received the National Book Award for Fiction.
To Pascal Covici
April 6, 1959 Minneapolis
Dear Dr. Covici:
I’m referring the enclosed letter to you in the faint hope of getting you to heed my will for once. Will you kindly instruct the lady to send not one of those dead-goose pictures which make me look like the Fred Allen of Nicaragua but the laughing photograph which you said you liked but never used? That’s a long question because it’s so rhetorical. I expect the same old photo to go to Chicago. My prediction is thus on record and the rest is up to you.
The trip to Puerto Rico has had to be called off for psychiatric reasons. Illness in the family. Someone near to me. Myself. No, summer’s coming, and we’ll be off from Mpls, and next winter we’ll probably be in Europe or Asia, so it doesn’t make sense to have a holiday now. Anyway, I must get through the play although I haven’t much energy to bring to it at this moment. I’m doing my weak best with life on every front. If only the barbarians won’t push. Since I speak in Chicago on the 24th and at Pittsburgh on the 29th of this month, I plan to come to NYC directly after the Chicago talk. I’ll try to leave the same night so that I can spend Sat., Sun. and Mon. in New York, flying to Pittsburgh on Tuesday and proceeding to Purdue on Thursday, earning seven hundred en route. It’ll be very restful to watch the best-seller list no longer. Three weeks. Not much. Still, last letter to me was somewhat puzzling for you said it wouldn’t sell a hundred fifty thousand copies. Of course not. But forty? Thirty? Even thirty would be very good. It would pay the mortgage at Tivoli. Best place in the world for suffering. I’ll keep it for old age or insanity.
Then is it all right with Dorothy if I appear for a few days towards the end of the month? I promise to make no trouble. I want to see Greg and Lillian Hellman, and perhaps we could spend a day in the country with Ralph Ellison if I can borrow a car or rent one. Samuel S. Goldberg would lend me his Cadillac convertible.
Best regards and love,
To Pascal Covici
[n.d.] [Chicago]
Dear Pat—
I think that Elizabeth Ames and Josephine Herbst, both at Yaddo, never received copies of
Henderson
. Would you ask Rita to check?
Henderson
. Would you ask Rita to check?
Last night I had dinner with Marilyn [Monroe] and her friends at the Pump Room. Today the news sleuths are pumping me. Marilyn seemed genuinely glad to see a familiar face. I have yet to see anything in Marilyn that isn’t genuine. Surrounded by thousands she conducts herself like a philosopher.
I heard from Greg this morning. He passed a difficult examination and was admitted to Bronx Science High School. How do you like that!
Yours,
About Marilyn Monroe Bellow would later say, “She was connected with a very powerful current but she couldn’t disconnect herself from it. [ . . . ] She had a kind of curious incandescence under the skin.”
To Harvey Swados
April 9, 1959 Minneapolis
Dear Harvey,
Your review of
Henderson
made me happy. There’s such a chaos of misunderstanding surrounding it that I feel like cheering when the main points are made out—spirited comedy, here and there edged black with earnestness. I can’t agree that it’s sentimental at the end—but then, how could I?
Henderson
made me happy. There’s such a chaos of misunderstanding surrounding it that I feel like cheering when the main points are made out—spirited comedy, here and there edged black with earnestness. I can’t agree that it’s sentimental at the end—but then, how could I?
Last, I want you to consider writing something for a semi-annual magazine of which I’ll be one of the editors. Meridian will publish it and pay contributors five cents a word. I want to make it possible to let off some steam, to write in the good old ranging way that was natural to novelists in the Twenties—in the spirit of
Dial
and the
Mercury
,
The Enormous Room
or
The American Jitters
(while Wilson yet lived, and before he became the great blimp of
The New Yorker
).
Dial
and the
Mercury
,
The Enormous Room
or
The American Jitters
(while Wilson yet lived, and before he became the great blimp of
The New Yorker
).
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